Automation of the different phases in textile manufacturing is in great demand, particularly for the timely manipulation and transfer phases. From a manufacturer's viewpoint, automation is attractive in terms of labor and elimination of manual work. Automation also eliminates repetition which may make the manual tasks tedious.
Accordingly, in his patent application Ser. No. 319,671 filed Nov. 9, 1981, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,428,315, John H. Keeton describes an automatic method and apparatus for assembling textile workpieces. More particularly, Mr. Keeton discloses an improved method for automatically making sleeves. In his application, Mr. Keeton describes a transfer apparatus for moving a textile workpiece from one conveyor to another. This is one of the key components in the patented apparatus to proper article manufacture. More particularly, the ability of the apparatus to correctly position the article on the second conveyor is very important. A continual problem has been to deposite the workpiece on the second conveyor in a manner assuring the general alignment of the workpiece edges for subsequent operations.